Money Making
Galaxy has many ways to make money, each with advantages and disadvantages. Knowing when and how to work for credits will greatly help you progress in Galaxy. Each dropdown tab details a specific strategy for making money. Individual pages are also dedicated to Mining, Trading, and Pirating. Mining Mining is the root of the economy in Galaxy. Without mining, trading cannot be done. Mining involves using a miner to mine asteroids before dumping the ore to a starbase (including Mega Base). Dumping ore is a miner's way of selling the ore it has collected, and ore in your hold cannot be used for anything else. Mining is slower than trading, but also much safer (assuming that you mine around your own base). Miners fuel the economy and help to keep it alive. Because miners are not armed; they can be a big target; so it's best to keep your miner around your own base - this also helps reduce travel time. When mining, every small mining laser mines 2.5 mass of ore per second, and every medium mining laser mines 5 mass of ore per second. The number of credits paid by your base for ores is worked out using the following formula: (1.25+Loyalty/100)*Mass For instance, if you have 10% loyalty and a hold with 5000 mass of ore inside, you make 1.35*5000, which is equal to 6750 credits. Tips and Tricks *When mining in larger miners that can mine multiple asteroids in a single run, it's best to assign a mining laser to several ores, instead of focussing them all on the same one - this reduces the number of times you need to reassign your mining lasers, as each individual asteroid will last longer. *It is heavily advisable to go home immediately after your faction either declares or has a war declared on them, as the 90 seconds of peacetime is likely your only chance of getting back to your base alive - miners don't have much health and are very slow and easy to hit, in addition to being expensive. This makes them very big targets for enemy pirates. *Mining at megabase is a bad idea. Not only does it not provide base power or ores to sell for your team, but it also means it is easier for pirates to kill you as there are no base lasers to protect you, and your enemies can spawn their combat ships at megabase. *At about 11% loyalty, transferring ores to the player warehouse, and then selling at the mega base will bring in more credits. An M Class at 30% loyalty will sell a full ore hold for 7,155 credits at a player starbase, while transferring the ore at the same loyalty and selling at mega base prices will net 9,601 credits. (1,778 silicate x 5.4 credits) A Rorqual or Mammoth will assume slightly larger prices at the cost of some extra mining time. Always mine at high loyalties if you can spare the time. *If you're in a private server with 2-3 people, you can dump into one NPC base and keep dumping into it until you can't. Then, when you feel the time is right, you can blow up the base to collect the 15% of ore you put in. This is called Boom Mining. *Uranium is a somewhat special ore that has a default lower price at starbase, which makes it nearly always better to transfer ore rather than selling it (even at 3 or lower loyalty), as at the megabase, you can often sell the uranium at 37 credits a piece, where as if you sell all ore, it gives you less credits except in very small amounts. Areas where Uranium can easily found is: Frion I, Myriad III, and a spawn usually found outside the lower left corner of the Minimap, mining this generally is able to almost fill up the entire Ore Hold of a Galaxy. Advantages *The payment is consistent and doesn't rely on the economy being good. *Ores can often be found very close to the base, especially in newer factions, meaning mining is fairly risk-free. *The ores generated through mining can be sold for considerably more than the base paid for them, meaning if you then sell them to another faction (or the Mega Base), you can make a lot of money for your faction - this is the primary source of income for most factions, and the main way of getting a strong faction started. *Mining is the best way to accumulate lots of a specific ore inside a starbase to lower the price of that ore for trading. Disadvantages *Ores can sometimes be very far from the base, especially in older factions, or if you're exclusively mining a single ore in order to try to lower its price. *When mining far from the base, it can sometimes not be possible to get back to your base within the 90 second grace period before a war begins. *Miners will have a harder time dealing with enemies such as aliens, as they have no firepower to deal with them. *Pirates may declare war on you wanting to destroy your miner. *Uranium is rather rare or nonexistent in some public servers, as it is only found in 'large' at planets which have most likely already have been mined, unless it has derelict station which has a quest that spawns a uranium asteroid. Even then, there is still a risk of war and people stealing your uranium for the quest on top of the quest cool down. A Galaxy VIP Server is recommended since there will never be a shortage or need for loyalty. Trading Trading can be one of the most effective ways to make money. It involves buying Material from Starbases and selling it to other Starbases (including the Mega Base). Freighters are the primary ships for trading due to the ships' massive cargo holds. Leaders sometimes avoid having their base bankrupted by putting selling restrictions on their Starbase. The restrictions on selling and buying can be viewed in the Economy tab. These restrictions usually don't last after the base has been upgraded to level 3 or 4. The most common way to trade is to buy the cheapest ore available in the economy (ideally at your own base) and sell it to Mega Base. Trading can be much faster than mining but is also harder to set up. Also, without using ships with large cargo holds, trading can bring lower profits than the average mining run. Tips and Tricks *The best way to lower a price in the economy is to mine a lot of that ore and dump it at your station. In order to prevent players from buying the ore before you've gotten the price as low as you want it to be, it is important to lock the purchase of that ore. *Silicate is always the best ore to try and lower the price of, since all prices decrease at the same rate, but the profit made on silicate increases faster in comparison to the other ores, as more can be carried in a single cargo hold, and more is mined by miners. *An important fact to remember is that the economy updates at a rate of 0.1 every 5 minutes, which means changing the price of an item by 1 will take a minimum of 50 minutes. Naturally, this makes planning important, and if you intend on reducing a price for trading then it's important to start early. *If you can access it, Frion I is a very powerful way to get low prices as it has lowered ore prices by default, which bypasses a lot of the waiting required to get a good price. This is especially true on Galaxy VIP Servers, as you can make several factions until you get one that is close to Frion, meaning the process of capturing Frion is much easier. *If the megabase doesn't have enough credits, you can buy ores from the megabase into your warehouse, and then swap servers to sell them again to a different megabase. This can be used to transfer vast amounts of credits from one server's megabase to another at almost no cost to the player. *Uranium is great for trading since the difference between starbase (27) and megabase (37) price has the starbase on the more beneficial side to begin with. Trading between starbase and megabase profits 10 per piece of uranium and a rorqual with a full hold produces 1250 pieces before selling or transferring happens. Advantages * Credits can be made very quickly with good prices. * It can increase your faction's power (and therefore territory), and supply the faction with credits to buy base upgrades. This may become vital in a server where other factions have already leaned towards hostility. Disadvantages * A good economy that allows trading to be used efficiently can be difficult to come across. * If you are at war, or if war is declared whilst you are in the middle of a run, you can lose your ship, as freighters are often flimsy and have no weaponry. This is very expensive, as freighters are expensive and losing your freighter with a full hold will add a lot more money to your losses. This problem can be avoided entirely through the use of Galaxy VIP Servers if you have access to one. * If war is declared, trade becomes extremely dangerous and almost impossible, and any good prices in your base are impossible to make use of. This problem can also be avoided if you have a VIP server. * When trading, you need to have enough credits to fill your hold, which can be problematic for particularly poor players. Pirating Pirating is a more dangerous way of making money, involving the destruction (and looting) of freighters and miners for money, and occasionally including the claiming the bounty if the target had one. Pirates usually use small fast ships that can kill miners and freighters quickly without taking heavy damage from the base lasers. Common ships for pirating include the Cobra, Sixfold and Gideon, and wealthy pirates may use an Ampharos for some tasks. Pirates normally attack miners and freighters due to the fact that these ships are unarmed and are expensive, with freighters usually carrying a lot of additional loot in their cargo hold. Most pirates have a decent sized bounty, making them fairly easy to spot. Late game pirates who are more wealthy and familiar with the game often picks up common behaviors from certain players. Using all of this to their advantage they are able to pick out armed capital ships to pirate to gain even more wealth from the large wrecks Dreadnoughts and Carriers can leave behind. These pirates also can lay out a trap and specifically target something they lay eyes on to secure their goal and profit from it with the least casualty. Many pirates will switch factions frequently in order to pick on the weakest targets, making them poor faction members as they're very likely to backstab their allies (this used to be a major threat but this has died down since the loyalty update) Tips and Tricks *Ships as big as carriers and dreadnoughts can be targeted by pirates if the pirates are in a group, or if the dreadnoughts have just left a large battle, such as a base siege. *Occasionally it can be profitable to lose a ship whilst pirating if you manage to kill your target, especially when the target has a bounty. (Using your own ship explosion can be a last resort in finishing off a low target) *As miners and freighters are often big and slow, spinal based ships like the Cobra are good at killing them. *Cruisers like the Sixfold can slowly use Light Lasers to pick off the miner or freighter's shields and use it's rapid burst cannons to easily finish off the ship. *Taking the time to familiarize yourself with common behaviors of certain players and new players can allow you to create better decisions and predict what you can do. Advantages * Pirating can be fairly easy, especially when targeting miners far from their base. * The enemy ships are normally unarmed. * Pirating can bring in a lot of money very fast if it goes well. * Pirating is fairly cheap to start, as strong pirate ships are very cheap in comparison to miners and freighters (such as the Cobra or Gideon). * When using a small ship with warp, it is usually easy to escape if a large ship comes along, making it fairly risk-free if you're careful. * If you want to gain a high bounty, pirating is a great way to increase it, as most of your targets will not have a bounty of their own. Disadvantages * Pirates can sometimes be easy to spot due to decent bounty, losing you the element of surprise. * Pirating requires a lot of patience. * Players may remember you and may announce the fact that you're a pirate to others. * Many players will look down on pirates with distaste. * If failed miserably, you can lose large amounts of money from ship destruction. * Many players escape to their starbase as soon as a war is declared, making it difficult to get to them. * It can be difficult to hurt other players while they are warping away. * It takes a while to gain enough loyalty. Looting Looting is a common method of making money as it is one of the easiest ways to make lots of money quickly. It involves finding wrecks from battles (typically those of starbases, though not always) and looting them before other players get a chance. Freighters are common ships used for this as they have large cargo holds and warp drives. It is very important that you are familiar with the common term "Vulture" as it can affect your reputation heavily which may have players target you specifically by name. This is most commonly done by joining a faction that is sieging a base, and then spawning a freighter to collect the loot from the wreck before the sieging players can take any. This also goes for any large capitals that has been destroyed by other players. For obvious reasons, this is heavily frowned upon by many players as it effectively steals the loot earned by the players who risked their ships. If you wish to loot without being labeled as a "Vulture" it is highly recommended that you join the fleet that is destroying said base or capital, and ask whether or not you are allowed to loot the wreck. Therefore, you can keep yourself a good reputation with other players and still gain profit without being targeted. You only get 15% of the materials used to build the ship, but you get 100% of the cargo of the ship. Tips and Tricks * A good ship is the wyrm, as it is fast, small, and has a decent cargo, in addition to being cheap to replace in the event of someone killing you. * It is important to make sure that you're not too close to a ship or starbase when it is killed, as the blast is likely to kill any excessively keen vultures. * When a starbase is exploding, do not warp too early as it is very possible the explosion may lag slightly and damage you even after the explosion animation of said starbase. * If you have the Festive Wyrm, use it. Its high mobility, small size, high cargo hold, and outstanding health will allow you to escape most pirates. Advantages * It can make a lot of money very fast, as a full hold of loot is worth a lot of credits. * Looting is an incredibly easy business. * If you're lucky you can make massive amounts of money by looting a large target. * Wrecks are not marked on the map, meaning if only you know of a wreck location you can have it to yourself. Disadvantages * Players are likely to try to destroy your ship if they catch you. * Often there won't be any wrecks to loot. * Sometimes vulturing can result in the loss of your freighter, as players are likely to try and stop you. * Looting can result in making enemies with strong players. * There are systems in place to prevent looting from taking place - sometimes you will need to wait before you can loot a wreck that you didn't help kill. Server Jumping Server Jumping is very similar to trading. Players try to buy the cheapest ore they can find before transferring it to their warehouse. From there, the player jumps around servers until he finds the highest price for that ore. It's best if you have a Freighter and a large warehouse for this strategy. Another way players may use this is by selling to the Mega Base in another server instead of going to another faction. Advantages * Because the prices extend multiple servers, HUGE amounts of money can be made. * Very little pirating can be done to you because you're spending little time on each server. * Because you're checking multiple servers, you're almost guaranteed to have the best prices at the current time. * You have the ability to find the ores needed to build capital ships. * You can save your entire server economy Disadvantages * The one trading must already have enough money to buy ore from a base. * Pirates may destroy your ship. (Assuming that you are at war with another faction.) * Factions may have selling restrictions. * Your ship will likely be unarmed (assuming that you are using a freighter), unless you are using the Constellation * A good economy that allows trading to be used efficiently can be difficult to come across. * Wars can end trading quickly. * You can bankrupt and destroy other server economies (especially if you manage to bankrupt the Mega Base ) * It can take insane amounts of time, possibly more than simply trading. Buying Credits Buying credits is the easiest and fastest way to make money in-game. Nothing rivals how much money can be gained in a single click. Hundreds of thousands of credits can be made in just seconds. Advantages * The fastest way to make money in-game. * The easiest way to make money in-game. * You can be anywhere in-game and still be able to buy credits. Disadvantage * It costs Robux. Category:Browse Category:Game Mechanics Category:Strategies